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Jesus was an Introvert!

Introverts of the world, disband. (It’s ironic, because introverts like to be alone and. . . oh nevermind). I’m an introvert, if you hadn’t guessed. I’m an introverted Associate Pastor, proving that God has a sense of humor. I am a low I on my DISC profile. Let’s be honest, I don’t like people. I like individuals, but groups of people are not my thing. I get overwhelmed by large groups, being with people drains me, even my closest friends. Like most introverts, I am surrounded by mostly extroverts who don’t get me at all. Their idea of down time is being together. My idea of down time is them all going away.

I think sometimes in our society and with our schedule, we don’t get alone time. The modern pastor (or associate pastor) runs out of time before everyone gets the piece of his time they think they need. Sometimes it seems like I am never alone.

This brings me to my point. If Jesus needed time alone, why do we assume we don’t? Jesus went off alone to pray often. During a big storm, the disciples were panicking, Jesus was by himself taking a nap. In Gethsemane, he tells the disciples, “Stay here, I’m going on alone”. Jesus took time for Himself.

Does that make Jesus an introvert? I don’t know, but it sounded like a good title for a blog. Regardless of your status as an introvert or an extravert, let me leave you with these thoughts.

First, take time to be alone. Get alone with a book, go fishing, play golf, drive someplace. This is a great lesson I learned from a great man who mentored me in college. He took me up to a place with a creek and a small waterfall, told me this was the place he went when he needed to be alone. I understood the message, sometimes you just have to get away. It’s for the sake of your sanity.

Second, cut your people some slack. If you see your church members 4 to 6 times a week, there is something wrong. If they spend that much time at church or with you, what is being sacrificed? Probably their time alone to recharge. We expect the people in our church to have the same standards and schedules as Pastors do, and the burn out rate for Pastors is through the roof. No wonder we can’t find people to serve, they have seen us torch all the other church members. Now we turn to them with a smile and say “it’s your turn”. Give me a break people, let’s take some meetings off the calendar. Send an e-mail and call it a day, the world won’t stop.

Finally, say no. Say no to events and programs that fill every day. Say no to those individuals who have an agenda and a torch, ready to burn you and everyone else to the bone for their cause. Say no to the stuff you can’t do anything about and you know you’ll spend hours working on and not get anywhere anyway. In a phrase “chill out”.

The world doesn’t revolve around you, you are not “more saved” if you work longer or harder. In a week, no one will remember anyway and you will shorten your life, ministry and list of friends if you go full steam all the time. Take a tip from the introverts, follow the example of Jesus. Take a break already.

Extroverts need all those things you mentioned as well. Especially time alone with God our Father.

One thing that has opened my eyes to the high-activity time-consuming nature of “modern” church life is spending the last 9 months as a church member and not on staff. Don’t just say “no” for your health as pastor. Say “no” as a pastor for your people’s spiritual health as well.

In my (introverted) role as an IMB worker, I had a highly extroverted supervisor say to me, “Missionaries cannot be introverts. Jesus was quite obviously an extrovert, and we are called to be as Christ-like as possible, so….”

Hi GREG,
🙂
He’s one of those ‘golden’ people . . . He remains a humble person, who will go over and above to assist anyone who needs his help, qualities that our Family have always seen in him from the beginning.
Yes . . . the ‘wine country’ AND Hawaii . . . he’s lovin’ it.
Did he pay his dues in the past? Absolutely.
I am a very proud Mom with good reason.

LOL, too true Greg. After the last election when I saw that idiot Barbara Big Mouth Boxer had been reelected I thought to myself “You know, Lex Luthor didn’t have such a bad idea in Superman the Movie after all”. 🙂

If you want, I can turn our state Exec loose on them. 🙂
He really gets going about the DISC profile and such and how we each have different strengths. I am of the opinion that if God has called us, He is already prepared and planning to work with us in just the ways that He has gifted us. Extroverted or not.

I am glad the early church didn’t profile pairs of guys like Paul and Barnabus, Peter and John, etc. They had several different kinds of personalities. If such profiling was used to keep them from ministry, you’d have to pick one or the other from each pair!

Josh,
The profiles like DISC can be used for good purpose as well. If two people of different temperaments can work together recognizing their own strengths and weaknesses and balancing the two, it can be a very good thing. The two pairs you cite are very good examples of that in action. Paul and Barnabas were near polar opposites from what we can tell in Scripture, but they were very effective working together because they filled in where each other was lacking.

I wasn’t referring to that aspect of using the profiles but to the type of personality stereotyping Jeremy Parks was referring to from his supervisor where it is assumed that only one type of personality can do a particular task. Those tools can be helpful for doing what you just said and for helping people understand areas they are weak in.

Josh,
I got you. I wonder if we couldn’t learn better from the examples you cited and try to utilize pairs of people into mission ministries, church planting and so on, instead of sending out someone alone and expecting them to “fill in all the gaps” themselves.

Dan-
So figure this out: Aaron, the introvert, must spend every waking moment with me who is the extrovert, and wants as much alone time as possible. I have learned in the mission work I’ve done, that people are very draining. If I can’t have my “alone time” I am very cranky and not a good missionary, spouse, sister….etc. Suddenly the “voices” of others overpower the only Voice I need to hear and I am miserable. The people I’ve served have taught me this; stay in the Word and surround yourself with others who are also in that “sercret place”. God’s Blessings!

My church has about 1100-1200 active members and our senior pastor is an introvert. I can be a bit introverted myself. In ministry, you have to learn to be introverted and still interact effectively with others. However, saying “no” to attending some things is a good direction for pastors.

I’ve seen churches where the pastor is in the middle of every single event that is going on in the church. Too many of them act like they need to switch to decaffeinated. If you are to raise up church members to share in the ministry of the church, then it’s a good thing to step out of the spotlight on many things.

My church does more than our pastoral staff can possibly be involved with. There’s directional and doctrinal oversight, but otherwise, our senior pastor might show up for a couple minutes and then take off. Many in our congregation are well capable of leading important functions. For example, there’s not a single staff member on our missions board as for as I know.

Another example: Our biggest foreign mission outreach involving multiple cycles each year is led by one of our deacons although the senior pastor participates in one of the team cycles every year. He doesn’t even take on the role of one of the team leaders for the cycle. But everyone feels his heart for the people we minister to.

It should be freeing to know that while the pastor can navigate a church, like a ship he doesn’t also have to always steer or row once he has raised up other individuals to do so.

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